Are We Losing Our Hachi?Chances of Aoi in "NANA 2" SlimmingWritten by Lisa Lam

For the past few days, I sent out a lot of emails to the companies behind "NANA's" movie production, fishing for any information regarding the rumors of Aoi Miyazaki not being casted in "NANA 2." There are no replies from Toho or TBS. However, SEDIC International's employee Masanori Muroichi was nice enough to write back. He was one of the staff members from "NANA 1." I asked whether or not Aoi Miyazaki will be returning for "NANA 2." I inquired about the other cast members as well, and wondered if filming for "NANA 2" has started yet. His reply:

Dear Lisa Lam,

Nice to meet you. I'm Masanori Muroichi from SEDIC International.

Thank you for sending questions & loving NANA.
But sorry We can't answer about your questions now.
We are preparing for NANA2. So please wait till announce in official.

Please cheering NANA & our company's movies.

Yours truly,Masanori Muroichi

So with this, I'm assuming that filming for "NANA 2" has not started yet. At the same time, my friend who used to be an entertainment reporter in Japan, was kind enough to help me email his old contacts for any information. One of his contacts, who not only owns his own theater in Japan, is a movie reporter for the famous magazine and website Nifty. He provided the following:

They said that Aoi will not cast in this movie if Nana 2 have nude scene of Aoi.

For Yui Ichikawa, they think that if she replace Aoi, the box office will drop 30~50% because she is not suitable for this character and not as popular as Aoi. Also, the most important thing is Yui and Mika, their image is not balance.

So movie company is try their best to use Aoi, maybe they will delete the nude scene in order to use her.

At this point, I can't say that I was not EXTREMELY surprised. A nude scene? For reals? I can't imagine "NANA" being rated Category 3. Maybe they mean semi-nudity or implied nudity. I really don't know the meaning of this. ^.^;; "NANA" and nudity... Huh...? ANYWAY, moving on-- My friend also contacted his buddy who is an employee of Toho. After a nice chit-chat with him, he sent me the following email titled "Aoi Has Been Replaced."

Hi,

From my friends who works in Toho Movie Co., he said that due to Nana 2 will not remove nude scene, she will not cast in Nana 2. But for the replacement, director have a list of many girl, Yui Ichikawa is only one of them, not the only one.

Once again, the topic of the mysterious "nude" scene is spoken of again. Same thing with the problem of balancing Hachi's image with Mika Nakashima. Whatever is the case, I DO hope that "NANA's" production company will suck it up and take out the "nude" scene so we can have Aoi Miyazaki back. Afterall, even THEY realize that Aoi is hard to replace! This makes me extremely curious as to what "NANA 2" will be about.

[ Note from Lisa: ] Okay, we finally got a confirmation from the Toho guy. Something was lost in translation somewhere. He said that it wasn't a nude scene afterall. But an actual bedroom scene, as in a scene showing her making love. This is just to clearify somethings.